


Tell Me One Thing

by madam_mess



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Death, Escape, Hurt/Comfort, Junkertown (Overwatch), M/M, Monsters, Psychological Torture, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-02-19 02:10:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13113747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madam_mess/pseuds/madam_mess
Summary: Roadhog is a half-giant, hated by both giants and human's alike. He has been forced to fight for his life in the Queen of Junkertown's fighting pits for fifteen years. One night, when put up against a crippled blonde with strange powers, his life changes completely.





	1. The Death of Mako Rutledge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fredius on Tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Fredius+on+Tumblr).



> This entire work was written as a secret Santa gift for my friend Fredius over in the Robots in Love discord.

It started in The Valley of The Giants, where colossal men and women lived together in relative peace away from anyone who might fear them or wish them harm. He was a runt among the others, only half born, with his father having been a human and his mother an elder in the village. She was one of the giant’s most fearsome and respected members but her choice to have a child with a human turned the others against her. When she died of sickness, her son was left with no one left to protect him from the cruelty of the giants who never wanted him there in the first place. They exiled him, shunning him from their society and leaving him to fend for himself.

At the time Mako believed it would be better for him to live amongst humans, only having heard about them from his mother while growing up. He had never met his father or seen another human and so he did not understand how different they were from him. Even the tallest of the humans feared the half-giant, dwarfed in his shadow and left shaking in his presence. He wandered from place to place, driven from one town to the next by villagers who were unhappy with his existence.

He was naive enough to think that it would be different here. After over a decade, Mako was able to settle down for about three months in a run-down cabin. The shack was just on the outskirts of a quiet town, where he assumed no one knew of his presence. Those months were the most peaceful time of the half-giant’s life since his mother’s passing. Being alone was always easier for him rather than being reminded of what he is by seeing those who were so scared of him. He should have known better than to get comfortable here.

“Come out, big guy! Don’t even think about trying anything funny! We’ve got this place surrounded!”

It was an early autumn night when the half-giant woke up to the sound of shouting outside of his hut. He rolled off of the worn mattress, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he peered out the window to see a mob of townspeople outside. They were lined up as far as he could see in both directions, circling around the decaying building. Many of the men and women held torches that lit their frightened faces in the night. Others held rakes, clubs, pitchforks, bows, chains, any sort of weapon that they could find and use to defend themselves from the monster who lived outside of their village.

Mako was no stranger to fighting humans. It was easy for him to take on a few rowdy men who wanted to do away with him but never had he gone up against so many before. For a moment he considered staying inside of the hut and to take each attacker on one by one as they entered to kill him.

The smell of smoke as his home was set afire quickly changed his mind.

He stayed for as long as he could, watching the far wall of the building become engulfed in flames, hoping that the men outside would be satisfied in watching his home burn. But as the flames got closer and began to lick at his skin, the people outside went nowhere. He could feel his lungs filling with smoke, causing him to cough violently. When the far wall of the shack began to collapse and he knew that he could not wait this out.

Mako charged into the cold night air, ready to fight his way through the crowd and make a run for the woods. He was sure that if he could make it to the treeline his pursuers would lose track of him in the forest. He could start over fresh somewhere new and keep moving from town to town as he had been for over a decade.

He had barely made it a few feet when he felt the first arrow pierce into his shoulder, the pain dulled by the adrenaline pumping through him. As a few of the armed villagers approached him, he shoved them away quickly, ignoring a yell as one scrawny young man flies several feet and thumps to the ground. The half-giant was slowed as another arrow hits him in the side, lodging into his oversized stomach. The wound was not deep enough to hit any organs, but the pain was much worse than the first, causing him to groan and grip the wound. Despite his pain, he ran blindly until his feet became entangled in something, sending him falling to the ground.

Mako turned onto his side and stared down with panicked eyes at the metal chain wrapped around his legs. He reached down, trying to free his ankles when another chain wrapped around his throat, pulling him back so that he could not reach the first. One by one, more ropes of metal wrapped around him. The cold iron caught on his wrists and wrapped around his knees, only constricting him more as he struggled. He screamed out in pain, desperately flailing and trying to attack anyone who got within a few feet of him but it was to no avail.

The half-giant stared up at the villagers surrounding him with blurry vision. They were trying to deter him from reaching out to them with pitchforks and knives. A part of the monster felt sorry for them. They were yelling at him, calling him a monster, calling him a freak, but he could tell that they were scared. They were only here because they wanted to protect themselves and their children. How could they sleep at night knowing there was a monster right outside of the village? They did not know what he was or who he was and so they feared him.

Mako felt the fight slowly leaving his body as the chains tightened around him. He left The Valley of the Giants almost a decade before this and after all the time he spent running, it would finally be over.

He always knew his life would not end peacefully. He knew he would die young, killed by a mob or by sickness or even by his own hand. He lived each day prepared for death, knowing that it could come at any time. It was the rest of the world against him, an uneven fight that he would surely lose in just a matter of time. And so when he felt his windpipe being crushed by the iron around his throat, he put up no fight, his vision going dark.

Almost fifteen years had passed since that night. Mako Rutledge died and Roadhog was born.


	2. A Crippled Contender

It took thirty years of his life for him to find somewhere he belonged. He was not meant to live with giants or with humans. He was meant to be here, in the fighting pits of Junkertown, forced to risk his life every day for the sake of the Queen and her people’s amusement.

Never since his mother’s death had anyone cared for Mako but the people who came to watch these fights  _ loved  _ Roadhog. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of people would cheer his name from their seats in the crowd. There were many fights each night, each to the death, and Roadhog was undefeated. He thrived here. 

The people he fought against meant nothing to him, just empty lives for him to end. His opponents were enemies of the Queen or other fighters that were sold into the arena like he had been, their only options being to fight or die. Roadhog killed them all without a second thought, deafened by the cheers of the audience as he did so.

It is true that he belonged here but he hated it.

He hated looking up the tall walls that held him in the pit only to see hundreds of faces cheering him on. He hated each and every person who sat by day after day watching as he was forced to kill those who were clearly weaker than him. He wondered what it would be like to get his hands on one of the spectators. Roadhog was a little over seven feet tall but that was not enough. If he was just a little taller he could reach up and take one of these men by the neck. He could drag them into the arena and rip them apart or tighten his fingers around their throat until he heard the snap of their neck. He wondered if the crowd would be silenced or cheer louder.

The snap that meets Roadhog’s ears is not from a member of the audience tonight. It comes from a bandit’s ribcage as he presses his large foot down into the man’s chest. He watches the man’s face as he spits up and chokes on his own blood. The red liquid drips down into his beard and stains his neck. This one had put up a fight. He was strong, muscular, and at least six feet tall. He got one good punch in on the half-giant, knocking the pig head he wore as a mask to the side before being knocked onto his back and crushed under the Hog’s boot. The half-giant feels nothing as he watches the life drain from the younger man’s eyes. 

This was his fifth kill today. He almost expected the fights for the night to be over until the Queen’s voice is ringing out over the crowd once again. The half-giant adjusts his mask as he listens in.

“Our next competitor is charged with mass arson and attempting to steal from your Queen! Jamison Fawkes has pleaded guilty to all charges and is sentenced to death by combat! This is my gift to all of my subjects! Fawkes is no ordinary contender! You are about to see the fight of a lifetime!”

Roadhog turns to the steel gate expecting to see a prisoner being pushed into the arena as usual but is instead met with six soldiers dragging in a large metal box on wheels. They’re saying things to each other that Mako cannot hear over the roar of the crowd before one of them clicks a button on the side of the container. Suddenly, the front of the box swings open, pouring water onto the dry sand of the ground as the six men run back toward the gate and close it hurriedly, leaving the box behind. 

A lanky figure is pushed out of the container by the rush of water, thudding onto the ground in a helpless manner which resembles a drowned animal. He rolls over on the ground, coughing and sputtering up water, not quite taking in his surroundings yet. Roadhog stares down at the man who is supposedly his opponent before looking up into the crowd where the Queen sits on her throne. She said that this would be the fight of a lifetime, but the half-giant has a hard time believing this as he watches the scrawny blond stumble as he tries to stand. 

The reigning champion notices several things about this man right off the bat. He was unsure of what his opponent was but it was clear from one glance that he was not human. The man had ears that were long and pointed upwards and teeth that looked as though they had been filed into sharp razors. His eyes were a bright orange and seemed to flicker in the night.

It takes Roadhog a moment to tear his eyes away from the oddities of his opponent's face but once he does, he only notices stranger things. The man’s right arm ends right below his elbow and he has some sort of metal contraption alike to a pegleg attached to his right thigh. The half-giant had not fought a cripple before but despite how it hardly seemed fair, he found himself approaching the tall, thin man slowly. 

“I gotta fight him?!” the blonde’s voice is loud and shrill, piercing through the roar of the crowd and making Roadhog wrinkle his nose under his mask. “That bloke’s fucking huge!”

The half-giant pauses at that, frowning at the young man who was complaining to no one in particular. He was beginning to notice how the water that had soaked the blonde’s clothes, hair, and body before was already seeming to dry at an unusual rate.

“You don’t have ta hurt me, yeah mate?” he asks with a sharp toothed grin. The strange man takes a step back from his opponent, hobbling on his pegleg and raising his single hand up defensively. “We can come ta some kind of agreement, yeah? What’d’ya say big guy?” 

Despite the annoyance building within him, Roadhog is silent. Over the years he had many people try to bargain or plead with him for mercy. Years ago, before he had grown so accustomed to it, the begging may have made him feel pity for his victims. But now, he simply thought it pathetic.

He steps forward again, reaching out and grabbing the young man by the arm and dragging him closer. He watches as the man loses his footing and kicks his legs helplessly. The Queen was wrong. This would not be an interesting fight at all. The Hog would end this just as he had every other fight. He reaches out, curling his thick fingers around a pale and still damp throat and begins to squeeze. He watches orange eyes widen in shock as the man’s only hand comes up and grasps helplessly at Roadhog’s wrist. 

He is sure that his opponent is going to pass out soon when the slender hand tightens on the champion’s wrist. A slight pain that he cannot place shoots through his arm slowly, starting out dull and growing until it feels like fire against his skin. The pain becomes unbearable quickly and he swears that he can smell his flesh being burned, causing him to release his foe. 

Jamison falls to the ground, gasping for breath in the same fashion that he had after escaping the container full of water. “That hurt, you ass!” he yells out through his ragged breathing, sending a glare up to the much larger man.

The audience is silent, confused by the apparent mercy shown to the champion’s opponent. 

Roadhog stares down at his arm, turning it over as he inspects the hand-shaped burn on his wrist. It did not make sense to him. Any other man would have died there with the Hog’s hand wrapped around his throat but this young man had somehow burned him to get him to let go.

“Fuck you!” the blonde screams out through a cough, “Fine! The deal we had is off! You want to fight me? I’ll burn you alive!”

Roadhog was not sure if the threat was empty or not but he was not eager to find out. He kicks his foot forward, catching the other man in the side and sending him across the wet sand. He watches as Fawkes scrambles to his feet, feeling no pity as the man stumbles and tries to move away further. The blond’s skin seemed to be smoking now, waves of steam rising up into the night air as the water that had covered him evaporates.

Roadhog glances from the young man to the container that he had been brought into the arena in. The Queen’s soldiers had to keep this thing submerged in water to control him and now that he was out, he seemed to be getting stronger. 

A part of the fighter was eager to have a challenge, having not been harmed like this in battle for months but another part warns against allowing the stranger dry off anymore. If he could burn Roadhog with only one touch, there was no telling what else he could do. 

And so he moves forward, sending a fist across the smaller man’s face and knocking him back to the ground, following it up with another kick to his ribs. He knew better than to let the younger man get a hold of him again and so he does not reach for the blonde again, instead just kicking and hitting him quickly to not allow him up. Any time the young man makes it to his knees, Roadhog pushes him right back down to the ground. As time passes, the skinny pale body was littered with more bruises and open wounds from Roadhog’s assault.

Several minutes pass. He is sure that his opponent will not be able to take much more and so he deems it time to finish things. He does not wait for Fawkes to get up this time. Instead, he rests his foot on the young man’s head, placing it there lightly and listening to the cheers of the crowd get louder. They’re chanting his name, waiting for him to crush the blonde’s skull under his foot until the unexplainable has them yelling and shouting in surprise.

Roadhog stumbles back as the body of Jamison Fawkes bursts into flames. He reaches down, patting out the fire that caught on his shorts before it spreads further, doing so easily with his large hand. He turns his attention back to the fire that has erupted, eyes wide behind his mask at the sight. 

The fire seems to gain height, taking a more humanoid shape which the half-giant quickly identifies as the blonde that he had been about to kill. Jamison stands straight, body engulfed in flames. Where his right arm had stopped at a stump before, fire continues outward to form a very distinct hand and doing the same with his right leg, making the crippled man whole for the time being. He lets out a shrill, cackling laugh which silences the audience completely as he charges toward the half-giant. 

Staring into the fire brings back a part of him. Visions of his hut burning to the ground as chains tighten around his throat have him paralyzed as the mass of flames run in his direction. He is sure this will be the end of him and prepares for the fire to ignite his flesh. He is ready for the same stinging that he felt on his wrist earlier and for the smell of burnt flesh to meet his senses once again, only to feel the rush of heat pass his right side and disappear. Jamison ran past him.

The crowd is screaming now, and when Roadhog turns around he sees the fire monster hurtling towards the steel bars of the exit gate at an alarming rate. The soldiers on the other side of the bars let out yells and commands, trying to decide what to do as fiery hands grip at the bars of the gate, turning them red and hot in a matter of seconds. The monster laughs maniacally as he bends the now malleable bars with little effort, pushing them open and slipping through to confront the guards. He sends balls of fire at each man, lighting everything in his path on fire as he makes his way through the tunnel. 

Roadhog stares in awe, not moving for a moment as he processes what is happening. His first thought is that he has been beaten. He was unable to kill one of his opponents and could not even touch the man who had managed to escape. 

But that was it. A prisoner escaped. Why couldn’t he?

It takes him longer than it should to make the connection and charge toward the gate. After fifteen years as a slave, fighting and killing for these people’s amusement, freedom was within sight, coming to him in the form of a trail of fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know how you like the story so far!   
> My tumblr username is madam-mess


	3. Smoke and Fire

The half-giant is surrounded by fire. He is running through the tunnel as fast as he can, choking on the smoke around him. Crates and tables are burning. Soldiers crawl along the ground, pinned down by their heavy armor as it heats up and roasts them alive. There were many people hiding in corners, cowering and nursing burn wounds, afraid to attack the half-giant that had gotten loose. Men were screaming and yelling in pain, a sound that Roadhog is practically deaf to at this point.

He had been brought down this hall many times before on the way to the arena and he knew that it would lead to the prison cells and then to an exit. Based on the path of fire, Jamison has some idea of where he is going as well. That or he is guessing blindly as he goes. Roadhog can hear the younger monster’s cackling echo down the hall. 

After making his way into the prisoners’ quarters he pauses, looking around at the sight before him. Everything in the room is on fire. Many men lie burned on the ground, their faces unrecognizable from the black scorching. The convicts in cages are crowding up against the farthest walls, screaming as the fire grows closer and closer to them. Some are already set ablaze and for others, it is just a matter of time. Roadhog considers freeing them, using them as a distraction for other soldiers to help him escape but as he coughs roughly from the smoke in his lungs his decision is made. And so he continues on, ignoring the many pleads and screams asking for his help, for him to have mercy on the trapped individuals. 

Roadhog has not seen the world outside of the pit in years. He has almost forgotten what this city looks like and as such he does not know the way out, his only option being to follow the destruction that his opponent left in his path. Buildings are burning and collapsing to the ground. Families are huddled together, running in the direction that Roadhog was leaving. There are a few soldiers about but strangely enough, their focus is not on the half-giant for once as they try desperately to put out as many fires as they can.

He runs for about ten minutes, gaining distance from the fighting arena with every step. He is getting closer to the monster that is setting the city ablaze if the increasing volume of the man’s laughter is anything to go by. In time, the entrance to the city comes into view, tall and looming over the shanty town within its gates. Roadhog is almost sure that he will be able to escape when a pained scream sounds out ahead of him.

Knowing that going back is not an option, he pushes forward and rushes into the clearing in front of the gate, ready to fight anyone who is there. What he sees before him are just a few soldiers. They had broken off from the rest of their group, who were all more focused on putting out fires, in order to intercept the escaped fighters at the gate.

“You fucking cunts!” 

Only with the cursing does Roadhog realize that the flaming monster has been replaced once again with a soaking wet, crippled, blonde who has been knocked to the ground by one of the soldiers. Each man holds a bucket filled with water, one of which is empty from recently being splashed on the newest pit fighter. 

“Run and tell the Queen we have the elemental!” One of the men shouts, sending the youngest of the group running back toward the arena, down a different alley from where the half-giant stands.

The gate is so close to him. It would be easy for him to make a run for it while the soldiers are distracted by Jamison and secure his freedom. But as another splash of water lands on the younger man and one of the soldiers kicks him to the ground, Roadhog feels himself grow enraged. It reminds him too much of how he had been treated when he was given the mask and name that he has today. He narrows his eyes at the group of men as he steps forward. There were only five left, an easy challenge for him. 

The first two men do not even see him coming, too focused on keeping the skinny blonde in place to see the large man approaching them. He takes each of their heads in his large hands, squeezing until he hears their screaming die away and their skulls crack open. He is not surprised to see the other men turning and running before their friend’s bodies even hit the ground. 

Roadhog glances down at the scrawny young man on the ground, scowling as the man who had just burned down half of the city was rendered a sputtering, shaking mess from just a bucket of water. One word was echoing in his head, spoken by one of the soldiers just a few moments ago. 

_ Elemental.  _

He has traveled across the continent in his search for a place to belong. On his journeys, he heard tales about many different monsters. He knew about creatures that were created from the elements and brought to life by sorcerers. He heard about women made from sea foam, individuals who were more shadow than man, and children who controlled lightning at their fingertips. Fire was clearly this man’s element but in this form, he was weak and frail. 

Roadhog could not explain why he saved Jamison Fawkes. Thinking about it now, he realizes that the decision was likely a poor one. He had nearly killed the man in this form in the pits earlier. When the elemental dried off, there would be no stopping him should he choose to lash out at the half-giant. So he decides that it’s best to leave before that can happen, letting out a small grunt of disapproval at the man’s weaker state and then stepping over the blonde’s body on his way to the gate. 

“Wait, wait, hold up mate,” the blonde coughs out, pushing himself up with his only hand and stumbling to stand with his pegleg, “I got a deal for ya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got so many great reviews on this that I really wanted to get this next chapter up before I leave for vacation tomorrow. Thank you all for the wonderful reviews. Each one means so much to me! Let me know what you guys think, and feel free to reach out to me on tumblr at madam-mess, if you want!


	4. Sticking Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've been gone for a little while. Thank you guys for being patient with me! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Watching the city burn from atop a hill was like a dream to Roadhog. He could see the light streaming over the tall walls and the fire erupting from some of the larger buildings. He could imagine the screams and cries of the citizens within as they tried to save themselves, rushing toward the only exit with whatever belongings they could fit in their arms. Something in him is trying to remind him that not everyone within the city had been responsible for the hell he experienced there. Though when he imagines the thousands of faces in the pits, cheering along as he was forced to fight for his life, he has no room for pity amongst his anger.

* * *

 “I got a deal for ya. You want revenge right?”

That had gotten his attention. He hated the people of Junkertown for making him live the way he did. Fifteen years of his life had been taken from him in those pits and it was clear to the fire elemental that he was angry about it.

“The Queen’s got her hands on some really nice loot. Rubies and diamonds and gold. Stuff like that. If you help me get to it, I’ll split it with you fifty-fifty.” The proposition had not been convincing to the half-giant in the slightest, until the blonde added on, “You and me can burn this place to the ground, mate.”

* * *

 And so they did.

The heavy bag full of precious gold and jewels slung over his shoulder meant nothing to him. But he had to admit, watching the flames peak over the walls of the city and remembering the way that the Queen’s neck snapped in his hand made the whole ordeal worth it. He always hated that woman even though he had never met her directly. He hated hearing her voice echo over the crowd of a cheering audience and he hated staring up to see her smug, cold face staring down at him from her throne at the highest point of the stadium. And now she was dead and Roadhog was free.

Though now the question arose, what he is supposed to do now? He is essentially an escaped slave and despite his newfound freedom, knows that life cannot go back to the way it was before. He was not that person anymore.

“Did you see that?!”

The annoying voice makes him grimace beneath his mask and he turns away from the sound in favor of walking in the other direction.

“You really fucking showed her, huh mate?” Jamison does not relent, hobbling after the half-giant on his peg-leg, kicking up sand as he goes. He seems to be having a difficult time, dragging his own bag of treasure behind him through the dry dirt of the desert with only one hand. “Hey hold up, wait for me,” he shouts out, unable to keep up with the stranger’s much larger strides.

If Roadhog remembers correctly, there would be a forest only a few hours’ walk from here where he could find shelter for the night. It would not be safe for him to rest in the middle of the desert, where anyone could see him from a mile away, especially if surviving soldiers from Junkertown decide to pursue the ones who destroyed their city and killed their queen. He did not think that it would happen anytime soon, given that survivors are probably trying to protect the remaining townspeople and extinguish fires in order to save the parts of the city that they could. Eventually, they will mobilize, name a new queen, and the fighting pits will reopen but Roadhog plans to be far from here by the time that happens.

Eventually, he hears Jamison’s hobbling steps catching up to him, moving much faster now. He glances down at the blonde who had taken his place in stride next to the half-giant. It seems that the fire elemental’s resting state was this more humanoid form. The only things that were giving him away as more than human were his pointed ears and teeth, orange eyes that flicker and glow like a flame, and the tips of his messy blonde hair that seem by be singed and smoking. His face, chest, and hand were covered in ash left on his body from his fiery form.

Roadhog’s eyes are drawn to the several strings of jewels and chains of gold hanging from the elemental’s neck, treasure that they had stolen from the Queen. It’s then that he notices that the scrawny young man was no longer dragging his sack of loot behind him and had left it behind somewhere.

The blonde seems to notice the head tilted his way despite the mask and he is quickly speaking up. “Yeah, I left my share,” he says defensively, pointed teeth peeking out from a crooked grin, “I’m not much for hoarding shiny things. Just think taking them from other people is fun.”

Roadhog grunts at that, taking a handful of jewels from the sack and dropping the bag to the ground. He does not need this much money either. It would just be a pain to carry around with him and so he shoves the handful of gems into his pocket and keeps moving. He stares ahead of himself again at the stretch of the outback, trying to ignore the other man as he continues. Why had this kid not gone his own way yet?

“Anyways, mate, name’s Jamie. What’s yours?” He only waits through the other man’s silence for only a couple of seconds before continuing, “Alright. I’ll come up with somethin’. I’m thinking Harold. Marcus, maybe?”

The half-giant can only take about a minute more of the blonde rattling off ridiculous names before he grunts out, “Roadhog,” just to shut him up. His voice is like gravel, low and grinding. He has to work to make each syllable leave his throat. After having not spoken in years, dehumanized in his captivity, his voice sounds foreign to him.

“You must think I’m dull, don’t you? That’s not a real name. I heard them up in the stadium calling that out. Don’t know how you decided on being called that but it’s fucking stupid. I meant your _real_ name, ya drongo. Do ya even got one?”

“Roadhog,” He insists again, voice louder this time as he says the name. He was not Mako anymore. He barely remembered being the person he once was. Mako would not have killed people as mercilessly as he did. He would not have survived the pits and he definitely would not have, after escaping, returned to murder a woman who had barely said more than a few words to him. No, it was clear to him that that was no longer who he was.

“Fine,” Jamie says stubbornly, obviously not happy with the answer that he received. “Well, I say you and me stick together, Hoggie. We made a bloody fucking perfect team back there. Not that you did anything since I carried your ass the whole time but I think that you and me have really got something goin’ here.”

Roadhog frowns, narrowing his eyes at the night before him at the idea of this strange man following him for any amount of time. The half-giant has always traveled on his own from the moment that he left his hometown to when he was taken and forced into Junkertown’s fighting pits by slavers. Anytime he thought about escaping, taking on a traveling companion had never once crossed his mind. He honestly expected Jamison to disappear soon after they left the city’s gates but at the uneven footsteps continuing to shuffle behind him he is proven very wrong.

“Aren’t much of a talker are you, big guy?” At not receiving a response, the elemental lets out a piercing laugh, throwing his head back as he does so. “Didn’t think so! Well, I’ll tell ya mate, I don't mind leading the conversation. I can talk enough for the two of us. I can promise you that!”

At the comment, Mako snorts out in exasperation, sure that Jamison would make good on this if the past few minutes were anything to go by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave me a comment. I seek validation ;-;


	5. Scram

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roadhog has not really been enjoying his road trip with Jamison.

They could hear the envoy before they saw it. They heard the voices of many men accompanied by the sound of wagons pulled by horses, crushing the autumn leaves below them. 

Roadhog did not know how many people there would be and he did not plan on taking his chances against a large crowd. And so he reaches out, his large hand wrapping around his traveling partner’s thin neck and guiding him into the treeline. He only takes them about fifteen feet off of the path before pulling him behind an oak tree, the trunk of it being thick enough to hide even the half-giant from view. 

“Hey, what’s your problem?!” The blond asks, voice loud as always, seemingly ignorant of their situation. The older man only grunts out quietly, hand moving to Jamison’s shoulder and pushing him to his knees amongst the leaves and dirt on the ground. “Hey! Hey! That hurt! What do you think you’re doing pushing me around like that! You can at least buy me dinner before-”

“Hush,” Roadhog growls out, kneeling in front of Jamison and peeking his head out from behind the tree. The group was just now coming into his view. He counted at least ten men and two wagons. It was not an unmanageable number by any means but the men were armed. Most carried swords on their hips and two had bows across their shoulders. It is not a group that Roadhog wants to take his chances with. 

“Oh, really?  _ Now  _ you want to talk to me, big guy? Haven’t heard you say anything in days and now-”

Roadhog does not hesitate to cover Jamison’s mouth with his hand, muffling the young blonde’s words under his palm. He sends a glare down at the smaller man, knowing very well that he can not see it due to the pig head covering his face. He then turns his attention back to the wagons being pulled through the clearing. In just a few minutes the two would be able to start their journey again, traveling in the cover of the trees rather than out in the open. 

It is then that he feels Jamie’s tongue press against his palm, followed immediately by a burning sensation. He keeps his hand in place for as long as he can, almost sure that the elemental would stop. But upon looking down at his burning orange eyes, narrowed in annoyance, Roadhog pulls his hand away before more damage can be done. 

“What the hell is wrong with you!” Jamison yells out immediately, scrambling to his feet. His hair has gone up in flames in his apparent anger and he takes a few steps away from the older man. He does not seem to hear the men shouting and running in their direction, drawing their swords. “You’re expecting me to just read your mind and hide when you say hide and stop talking whenever you say so?! Why’re you even hiding in the first place! You can take these guys, I’ve seen you fight-” 

His words are cut short as an arrow whizzes past his head and Roadhog gets to his feet quickly. The half-giant feels annoyance build inside of him as he rushes from the treeline, attacking the group of men before they can fully mobilize. He charges at one of the archers first, grabbing him by his neck before he can lease a second arrow. He scans the group, turning to use the man in his grip as a shield against the second archer. He hears the man scream out in pain as an arrow lodges into his chest. It was the opening that the monster needed to charge forward and knock the second bowman flat onto his back, not hesitating to step on his skull and give him a quick death.

As the fighting continues, Roadhog is almost sure that any moment now he will see a ball or a flurry of fire come from Jamison’s direction to assist him in the skirmish. But as one man after another fall at the hands of the half-giant, he sees that it is not happening. He feels the tip of a blade slice against his leg, not deep enough to cut into an artery but close enough to break the skin. He can feel the blood drip down his leg and he panics for a moment, turning around quickly and shoving the soldier back. 

He knew that not fighting for a week should not have made him weaker. He knew that it should take much longer than that for his skills to deteriorate but he felt that he was not on top of his game. He  _ needed  _ for Jamison to help him out this time and the elemental was nowhere to be seen. It is not until the last man’s body falls to the ground that half-giant turn his attention back in the direction of the large oak tree, only to see the thin blonde leaning against it and grinning over at him with sharp teeth and mischievous eyes.

The two have been traveling together for a little over a week now. Every day, Roadhog expects it to be the last, hoping that the young fire-elemental will get bored of the silent trip and abandon him. Jamison was not good for much. While it was beneficial to have him around to light campfires and have an extra set of eyes so that Roadhog could rest easier at night, the man was a nuisance. He did not help find food in the evenings due to his insistence that he did not technically need to eat. He was constantly chattering on and on about how much better the forest would look if it were all on fire and how many people he had stolen from before the Queen at Junkertown. Worst of all, he now seemed to be incapable of following directions, refused to fight with the older man when needed, and his loud mouth almost got Roadhog killed.

The larger man reaches down, clamping a hand over his bleeding thigh as he takes a few steps closer to the grinning blonde. “Hell was that?!” he growls out roughly as he approaches the smaller man, who seems to be unfazed by his anger.

“Four words in one day? Is it my birthday?” The blond asks with a grin before immediately trying to defend himself. “What do you mean? You had ‘em, right mate?” At not receiving a response he continues. “Man, you really showed those guys. I gotta admit I love watching you work, Hoggie. Really gets me going, seeing you break some skulls like you do. No wonder all those people back in Junkertown wanted to keep you around. I’m just glad you and me are friends now, not the other way around.” 

Roadhog could feel the anger building up within him. This kid is absolutely good for nothing and refuses to help him just so that he could watch him fight? The half-giant could not take this anymore. “We aren’t friends,” he says gruffly, brought to respond due to the pain in his leg and the blood soaking his fingers. 

Jamison’s smile falls completely now and his eyes grow sharp as his eyebrows furrow in annoyance. “What are you talking about? Of course, we are! We’re best mates, Hog. Jamie and Roadhog takin’ on the world together! S’ got a nice ring to it, right?”

“Wasn’t together.” 

“Well yeah, but I did most of the work in Junkertown. The least you can do it get rid of a few travelers.”

The larger man actually lets out a growl of frustration. “Fuck off,” he says in response, “Don’t need you.”

Jamison clenches his only first, glaring up at the pale pink of the pig head covering his companion's face. “You don’t mean that,” he insists, though he is only met with silence. The longer it stretches on, the more the elemental’s resolve seems to break. “Fine!” He says, hair igniting at the ends and eyes emitting flames from the sockets. “Fuck you then!” He yells, “After all that I did for you and you just want me gone?” 

When the younger man remains unmoving, Roadhog knows he needs to put the final nail in the coffin. “Scram,” he insists bluntly. 

“Fine!” The elemental yells out, clearly having lost control of his emotions. “You know what then, Hog?! I didn’t want to hang out near you anyway! You’re the worst! Before today I could count the words you’ve said to me on one hand! And I’ve only got one!” With this, his yell breaks off into a spastic laugh. “You’re probably used to being alone anyway! Can’t imagine anyone alive would be willing to put up with a fat freak like you. I should have killed you in Junkertown when I had the chance you miserable pig!”

As the fire creature’s voice raises, so too do the flames erupting from his body so much so that Roadhog can feel the heat emanating from them. For a moment, he is sure that man is going to lash out at him. He prepares himself for the feeling of being engulfed in fire only for it never to come as Jamison turns from him and storms off into the woods, scorching everything in his path as he goes and taking the familiar warmth with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! and for all the sweet comments!


	6. A New Silence

Over a week has passed since the half-giant and elemental went their separate ways. Roadhog found a few weapons in the wagons that he and Jamison ran into along with some provisions for his journey. With him now he carried a knife against his hip and a large, frightening meat hook attached to a long metal chain. He also has a messenger bag which carries a couple of nearly empty canteens, his jewels that he stole from the Queen at Junkertown, and a few yellow potions, which Roadhog quickly found out had regenerative properties that had healed his wounded leg within seconds.

When Jamison disappeared, he thought it would be a blessing but soon realized how wrong he was. He hates to admit it but he had grown used to the constant chatter from Jamison, having not experienced silence like this since before Junkertown. In the pit, nothing was ever quiet for long. When he was fighting, the crowds cheering was almost deafening, roaring constantly against his eardrums. When he was below the stands, in the inmate holding area, it was a different kind of noise. Men and women alike were crying in their cells, begging to be released. Some had gone crazy, screaming and cursing while they banged their fists on the bars and walls. While every sound he heard when locked away for fifteen years had been hard for him to hear, they kept him from the excruciating silence that he was experiencing now.

Hardly a sound reached his ears now but he swears that he can still hear the wailing from the other prisoners, his ragged and strained breaths as a chain tightens around his neck, and the screams of those he had killed only to save his own life. He could not avoid thinking about it anymore. 

It was difficult to determine how many people he had killed, the years having blurred together. Those from the past few months were the most vivid. Roadhog could remember the method of death for each one but he could not for the life of him remember their faces. Only one opponent's face stuck out in his mind.

It was the first night Roadhog was thrown into the pits. He did not know what he was doing there, shocked by the many faces staring down at him expectantly and the yelling from the crowd. When the Queen yelled out about a deathmatch, the young half-giant wanted no part of it. His opponent was the reigning champion, a middle-aged man about six feet tall with dark eyes, rough features, and stubble on his cheeks. 

Roadhog, as he had just been named a few days prior, never wanted to kill his opponent. He continued to push the older man away from him and onto the ground. The man kept coming back at him though, unrelenting and striking out at the larger man until he was exhausted. His opponent ended up knocking the pig mask from Roadhog’s head, sending it across the sand on the ground. Without thinking, Roadhog reached out and grabbed the man by the neck and slammed his head against the hard ground, hovering over his limp body on his hands and knees. 

The other fighter’s death did not register for him at first. He heard the crack of his skull and the crowd’s volume doubling. When he finally looked down at the man’s face his stomach churned, making him feel sick. 

The man’s brown eyes were wide and unmoving, staring blankly ahead. His hair was brown and speckled with flakes of grey which were now stained with the blood pooling below him. Roadhog remembers every mark on that man’s face. He had freckles scattered across the bridge of his crooked nose, wrinkles just under his eyes, a scar running from his right temple to his lip, another one just over his left eye. Every detail of this dead man’s face is still engraved in Roadhog’s memory. 

He remembers how disgusted he felt at having killed someone. He stayed on the ground and scrambled for the discarded pig’s head, pulling it back on to cover his face in shame.

At what point did killing become easy for him?

He is broken from his thoughts by the sound of horses. Roadhog stopped to rest not long ago but at the new sound, he stumbles to his feet as the thudding of hooves against dirt nears him. He has barely taken a few steps in the opposite direction before the horses are circling him, knights atop their backs, drawing their swords as their steeds slow to a trot and then stop altogether. The half-giant turns in a circle, not wanting to take a chance against ten men on horseback. He recognizes the sigil on the men’s armors that identified them as soldiers from the recently destroyed Junkertown. It took them almost three weeks to catch up with him.

He pulls out his hook, gripping the leather handle of it tight in his hand as he stares down the men surrounding him, unmoving. 

“Roadhog,” one of them says, finally speaking up, “Where is your boyfriend?” That seems to amuse several of the men who laugh at the joke but still do not lower their guard against the monster that they had surrounded. A few moments pass with no reaction from the escaped prisoner and so their assumed leader feels the need to clarify. “Where is Jamison, the fire elemental?” The man speaking seemed to be the oldest of the soldiers. His hair was short, thin, and grey and he had a crooked smile with several missing teeth.

While Roadhog did not want to help these men out at all, it was pointless to ask him this. He had no clue where Jamison stormed off to after their fight. He had not heard from the man since, and for all he knew the elemental had gone off to burn down another town somewhere. The leading knight’s question is met once again with silence.

“No matter,” the crooked-toothed man says finally, “Kill the fat freak. We’ll bring his head back on a stake.”

Roadhog lifts his hook into the air, ready to go out with a fight when he hears an annoyingly shrill voice yell out from the treeline. “What do you think you’re doing calling my friend fat?!”

A blur of fire comes bolting from Roadhog’s left, running right into the middle of the circle before passing him and leaping up to knock the General off of his horse. The man drops his sword with the force of the impact, screaming out in pain as his armor melts and bubbles against his skin, kicking and swinging at the fire monster to try and get Jamison off of him. 

The rest of soldiers are immediately sent into a panic. Some of their horses rear up at the first sight of fire, knocking them to the ground as they run back in the direction they came. Roadhog has little time to think, sending his hook flying at an approaching man and catching him around the waist before yanking downward to pull him from his horse. Roadhog grabs the knife from his belt and slits the man’s throat, making quick work of him. 

It does not take long until all of the men are lying dead on the ground, some soaked in their own blood and others burning away slowly with blackening flesh. Roadhog’s hands and chest are covered in blood, though luckily none of it was his own this time around.

“Man you really screwed up this time, huh?” Jamison’s voice rings out, pulling the half-giant’s attention from the sight of the carnage. “Those guys would have gutted you if I wasn’t here to save your ass.” He cackles out a laugh as he kicks at one of the burning masses on the ground with his peg leg. Slowly, the elemental’s body stops burning and returns to the form of the lanky, thin blonde that Roadhog was more accustomed to. 

The older man just stares at Jamison. He was surprised at the young elemental having made such an entrance at just the right time and for once, the crackling voice does not annoy him. He says nothing as he watches the elemental pacing back and forth, hobbling over his fallen victims. 

“Oh don’t look at me like that,” Jamie says, as if he could even see Roadhog’s face from under his mask, “If I hadn’t been following you all week you would have been barbeque by now. I think I deserve a little gratitude! And even an apology!”

Roadhog snorts slightly at that. He was grateful that Jamison showed up when he did but was not sure what exactly he should be apologizing for. “For what?” he asks gruffly, stepping closer to the elemental.

“How about for making an ass of yourself with those bandits last week! And for sending me away after all I’ve done for you! And while you’re at it you can admit how much you missed me!”

“Fine,” Roadhog rumbles out, staring down at the younger man and cutting him off before he can say more. 

This brings the elemental quiet in his tracks, clearly not having expected anything from his rambling. He stares up at this friend with wide flaming eyes, watching as the large man turns away from him and starts walking away. 

“You coming?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and commenting! I'm seeing a few people in the comments discuss headcanons for the character and this just warms my heart so much.   
> Feel free to follow me on tumblr at madam-mess.


	7. Finally a Good Thing

Things were not the same between the two travelers after they met back up over a month ago. It was as if a barrier had been broken between them. 

Roadhog would not admit it, especially not to Jamie, but the fire elemental’s presence was far more comforting than it had been when the two first left Junkertown. He was grateful for not being left in the constant silence that had been slowly driving him crazy after Jamison left and Jamie was clearly more than happy to have someone to talk to. 

Compromises had to be made on Roadhog’s part, of course. If he went too long without saying anything to Jamie or brushed him off too much the elemental would get easily annoyed, burning the larger man’s food for that evening or refusing to light the campfire at night. And so Roadhog took care to nod along every once and awhile as Jamie spoke and respond to the occasional question. The half-giant was surprised by the lengths that he would go to just to keep this younger monster from being upset with him, though he could not reason with himself why this was.

Jamison was pushing it tonight, though. Clearly trying to get closer to the older man than he would normally be allowed. In a little over two months of knowing each other, Jamie had never asked Roadhog about himself, realizing quickly that he had no interest in sharing his personal history with his traveling partner. Tonight though, he seemed to be insistent on getting to know Roadhog better.

The elemental stopped rambling about the fish that his friend caught just an hour ago in favor of asking, “Have you traveled here before?” 

The question seemed random to the half-giant, who was kneeling next to their campfire, cooking the fish that he had caught on a long stick over the flame. He lifts his head to look over at Jamison, saying nothing. It was a bit unsettling at how good the blonde had gotten at reading Roadhog’s body language. Even with his face covered by the pigskin mask, Jamison somehow could read him well enough so that words were not always necessary. 

“I just mean,” the elemental starts again, leaning back against the thick tree trunk behind him as he unlatches the peg leg from the stump on his thigh, “You seem to know where everything is. You knew where the closest river was for fishing earlier and yesterday you said that we needed to travel west so we didn’t run into a town. Just curious if you’ve been here before is all, mate.”

As scatterbrained as he was, the elemental was a lot smarter than he had originally let on. Just a week ago Jamison showed the older man how to improve his animal traps to help him catch more food and surprised Roadhog with a completely new trap to catch larger prey, made of only vines and sticks. He was a genius in his own right, but Roadhog did not think that Jamie would be able to pick up on something like this.

The half-giant grunts out in response after a moment, keeping his eyes trained on the fish browning in the small fire. At the silence that follows he speaks up. “Been lots of places,” he clarifies, barely glancing over at the younger monster before looking back to the fire again. It was strange, as if he was looking at Jamie either way. He frowns to himself and chooses to stare off into the woods instead, away from both flames.

“Like where?” Jamie asks eagerly. He knew that Roadhog did not want to share anything about himself but the large man had opened up the floodgates with one answer. “So you did do stuff before fighting for the Queen?” The growl from Roadhog does not deter the blonde in the slightest. “I kinda thought you were born there. What did you do before all that then, huh mate? Just how long were you in that shit hole anyway-”

“Jamison.”

The elemental narrows his eyes slightly at being interrupted by the low growl, but his expression quickly softens as he stares down at the ground. “Sorry mate,” he mutters out defeatedly in a voice that was quiet and uncharacteristic of him. 

A tense silence overtakes them. The two refuse to look at each other as Roadhog finishes cooking his fish and sits back against a fallen tree to start eating. In all the time that they’d been traveling together, Roadhog has never taken off his mask. He is always sure to turn away from the younger man or to only push it up past his mouth while he ate. 

“Hey Roadie?” Jamison says quietly, just a few minutes later to get the other man’s attention, “I didn’t ever have a home or a family or anything. I heard that most elementals live and work with the sorcerer that made em but I never met mine. Think that maybe something happened to them. Or maybe they ran off cuz they realized they fucked up my arm and leg. Or maybe they gave up halfway through making my right side or-... Anyway, so I just kind of wandered around for awhile. Burned a couple of cities down for fun and didn’t really know what to do with myself. I guess I was pretty angry at having to be alone all the time and I was taking it out on people that didn’t ever do anything to me... Still don’t know what I’m doing really. It’s not like I got anywhere to be or anything to do. I guess that’s why I’m glad that we’re friends now, cuz you don’t seem like you got anywhere to be either, right big guy?”

Roadhog listens as Jamison’s normally harsh voice continues on. Normally when the younger man rambled on about things, they had no real point to them. He had mentioned burning down buildings and towns before without a reason to it but never had he opened up like this to Roadhog. At the mention of them being friends, the half-giant’s shoulders tense up. He never really considered Jamison his friend but now that the elemental says this, he knows that it is not far from the truth. The two were very similar in lots of ways. They were both monsters who had nowhere to belong and they both had been completely alone up until now.

Roadhog lets out a slow stream of air, pulling his mask back down to cover his mouth once again so that he can look over to the skinny blond to his right. “Fifteen years,” he says calmly, voice coming out more unsure than he had intended. At the confused look from Jamison he lets out another huff before explaining. “You asked how long.” He’s silent for almost a full minute, wrestling himself on whether he should continue or not. “M’ only half giant. Didn’t fit in with the others so I left them. Didn’t fit in with the humans either. Had to move around a lot until some guys got me. Took me to the pit. I was alone for eighteen years. Then I was in the pit fifteen.”

He knew that his story was not making much sense. There were huge gaps that he did not want to fill and some that he did not want to or could not remember at all, but this was more information about himself than Jamison could have asked him for.

“I guess it’s good we found each other then, right mate?” The elemental asks, his usual crooked grin taking over his features once again and only widening as the half-giant nods in agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left a comment so far! I appreciate all of them so much!


	8. Of Masks and Men

The first thing he notices as he wakes up is that his entire body is sore. His eyes open slowly, unsure of his blurry surroundings. When he tries to move even the slightest, pain shoots through his body, stemming from his shoulder, his side, and his neck. He groans out in agony for only a second but the sound burns his crushed throat and has him gasping for air.

“Hey! Hey! This thing’s waking up!”

Mako turns onto his side, blinking his eyes to bring his surroundings into focus. There are metal bars surrounding him on every side. Beyond the bars, the scenery moves past him, dark trees like shadows against the night sky. He can hear the sound of a horse’s hooves against a gravel path and wheels creaking and turning beneath him. He is in a cage and he is being taken somewhere.

“Let him wake up then, we’re almost there. And he’s not going anywhere.” This voice is different from the first, deeper and more gravely. A man comes into the half-giant’s view as the carriage comes to a stop. His hair is long and dark, slicked out of his sickly pale face with grease. His eyes are cruel and he sneers at his prisoner with yellowed teeth. “Aren’t you an ugly beast,” he snarls out, dark eyes flicking back and forth between Mako and something just out of his sight.

“Leave him alone, mate,” the first voice chimes in again from the direction that the greasy haired man is looking, “You’re gonna get him mad.”

“And what’s he gonna do about it?” The man in his field of vision cackles out, taking a step closer to the caged monster. “He couldn’t hurt a fly like this-”

Mako had never been one to roll over and take this sort of treatment. He reaches out the second that the man is close enough to him and grabs him by his shirt, pulling him up against the cage. The pain shooting through him at the sudden movement almost distracts him from the stranger’s screaming as he thrashes and struggles, trying to pull away. Several other men rush toward him, pulling their accomplice from the monster’s grip as one man shoves a stick into the cage, hitting Mako in his already bruised neck.

He falls back, grasping at his wounded throat and moving to sit at the side of the cage furthest from the men who held him captive. It hurt for him to breathe. It’s then that he remembers the chain around his throat earlier that night, suffocating him and crushing his windpipe. A hand moves to his side, finding the bloody wound left by the arrow that had pierced him. He remembers that he was attacked by villagers, shot twice, strangled to unconsciousness, and now he has been given to these men.

“Man you still got some fight in you!” The man with yellow teeth wheezes out, trying to compose himself in front of his companions, “The Queen’s gonna pay us more than your weight in gold, you ugly cunt! You’re gonna make us rich men!”

It clicks to Mako who these men are now. He has heard of slave traders stealing men and women from their homes and taking them miles away to be sold to the highest bidder. He knew that oddities like him could be sold for quite a bit of money. Any monster or magical being would be considered a rare prize for potential buyers. Elves and nymphs were often sold as sex slaves or into forced marriages. Elementals, dwarves, and djinns were the most common household slaves. Mako did not have the slightest clue why anyone would want to buy a giant, or half-giant, though. What service could he possibly offer this Queen who wanted to buy him?

Within a few few days, he would find out.

He could not fight the soldiers who dragged him out of the cage. There were too many of them, holding spears out in his direction and keeping chains wrapped tight around his body. He only saw the Queen for a moment before he was being pushed and pulled through the tunnels beneath the fighting arena that would soon become familiar to him.

He was backed into a cage that was clearly not meant for someone as big as he and chained to the bars. He pulled at the restraints for only a moment before giving up in exhaustion and pain.

“You like your new home, piggy?” one of the soldiers taunts him, lifting a heavy boot up and pressing it into the half-giant’s wounded shoulder, causing him to hiss and shy away from the pain. “Answer me,” at having not being given a response, he pushes down on the wound harder, tearing a broken yell from the monster. “What’s your name?”

He refuses an answer again, turning his head away from the soldiers and clenching his jaw shut, trying to ignore the pain shooting through his body. His name did not matter to him anymore.

“We can call you pig face if you want,” one of the other soldiers butts in, kneeling down in front of Mako. “That what you want, pig face?” He stares for a moment before letting out a cruel laugh. “Hey, I got an idea. We still got that hog from lunch?” he asks, not waiting for a response before heading out of the room and returning only a moment later, dragging a half-eaten carcass behind him.

Mako doesn’t watch as they cut up the dead animal further, carving up his lifeless form not far from where Mako sits, chained to the bars of his cage. He feels weak, hurt, and sick, feeling himself nod off to sleep until the putrid smell of rotting flesh meets his nose. His eyes open quickly after that, immediately being met by the sight of the skin of the pig’s head being shoved in his face. He yells out, thrashing against the chains and moving his head frantically to get the thing out of his face.

“Get him to hold still!” Some of the men are shouting and laughing as the pig-skin mask gets forced over Mako’s head. “Look at that! It’s a perfect fit!” “Now we don’t got to look at his ugly mug anymore!” “Maybe we’ll call him ‘The Hog.’” Mako yells, still thrashing as trying to get the pig’s head off of him. The smell assaults his nose and he can feel the pig’s blood against his skin. It smears on his lips, causing him to close his mouth immediately. “Roadhog!” One of the men yells out through the laughter.

“Roadhog!” Another voice meets his ear, one more familiar, concerned, “Roadie, wake up!”

When Roadhog’s eyes shoot open, he is not in a cage. He is not chained down, unable to move. His body does not ache and despite the normal hoarseness of his throat, it does not feel bruised anymore. He still feels panicked though, sitting up quickly and checking his body for injuries, grasping at his throat.

“Roadie, what got into you, mate? You were yelling for nothing.”

Jamsion’s voice barely registers with him as he pulls the pig skin from his head, tossing the mask to the ground without a second thought. He can feel Jamison’s eyes on him, the elemental actually falling silent for once as the half-giant wipes tears from his eyes with shaking hands.

He knew what Jamison was seeing. His face was stubbly and fat with black eyes and long grey hair. He had a scar running across the bridge of his nose. No one had seen his face or known his name in over a decade. He always thought that if he gave those things away, it would make him weak. It would make him vulnerable and exposed.

“Hoggie,” Jamison says in a quiet voice, moving closer to the larger man carefully, “Roadhog. Why’re you crying, mate?” He does not wait for an answer as he moves to sit next to his friend. “You’re shaking. Are you cold mate?”

The half-giant’s panic slowly subsides as a slender arm wraps around him. He feels Jamison push his way into his lap to hold his friend’s head to his shoulder. The elemental’s unnatural warmth is unexpectedly calming to him. His body is like a heater, distracting the older man from the cold night air and from his memories. “You don’t got to talk to me if you don’t want. But you got to know you're not alone anymore, Roadie,” the blonde says quietly, voice lacking its normal sharpness as he seems to hit the nail on the head.

“Mako,” the half-giant mutters quietly, shaking his head and resting his forehead against his friend’s shoulder. “My name is Mako.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be updating just on Monday's from now on. It may go back up to twice a week if demand is high but right now I need to focus on some other stories. Thank you all for reading I hope you enjoyed this chapter. :D


	9. Answers Without Questions

They never talked about Mako’s breakdown that occurred a few weeks ago.

The larger man felt like a fool, having to be held tight by his younger friend while he cried from something as stupid as a nightmare. The mask was burned that night. After he calmed down, he asked Jamison to do it for him. He wonders if it is as strange for Jamie to see him without the mask as it is for him to not wear it anymore. There were many times when he found the elemental’s eyes lingering on him, making him feel more self-conscious and exposed than he had ever been.

The two grew even closer after Mako gave up being Roadhog. It was not easy for him to open up to his friend, but little by little he was making progress. Each day, they would both sit down by the campfire at night and share one thing about their lives. It became a new rule for them, like a ritual. For the first week or so they both seemed to have trouble with it, only sharing the most basic of things and sometimes aspects of their lives that were insignificant, but they slowly found ways to open up. 

“It’s not that uncommon right?” Jamison asks with a laugh, staring up at his friend who only answers him with a raised eyebrow. “Lots of people don’t know how to read, mate!” he says insistently, plopping down next to the larger man and leaning against his side, watching as the half-giant chews at a roasted rabbit that the couple caught earlier that day. 

Roadhog grunts quietly at the comment, shaking his head a little. He was not bothered by how close Jamison was to him. After the night when he told the elemental his name, Jamison had gotten into the habit of sleeping right next to his friend, sometimes with one of the men’s arm around the other. It took Mako a bit to get used to it but with the temperature dropping the further south the pair traveled, he was grateful for the heat emanating from Jamison’s skin.

“Come on, Mako,” the blond laughs out, his sharpened teeth poking out from between his lips as he grins, “You grew up with giants, right mate? Do any of those big fellas know how to read? Aren’t you all suppose to be barbarians or something?”

The older man snorts out a laugh at that. If it had been anyone else the comment would have angered Mako to violence, but he knew that Jamison meant nothing by it. “M’ mom taught me,” he says simply, nudging Jamie in the shoulder with his elbow as he starts eating again. He soon finds himself pausing again though as Jamie speaks again.

“Your mom?” he asks, having never heard Mako mention his family until now. When the two decided to share things about themselves, the older man was very clear that he did not want to be asked questions and that he would open up to Jamie on his own time. But now with the question clearly on Jamie’s mind, Mako saw no reason to not answer it.

“She died,” he says quietly, looking away from Jamison to stare ahead of him at the treeline of the clearing where they had set up camp. “She was a good mom,” he finally continues, speaking slowly as he remembers the details, “Never met my dad. The other giants were going to kill him if he didn’t leave The Valley, so my mom sent him away. Only reason they didn’t come for me was ‘cuz they were scared of her. She taught me how to read and write. Had to stay inside our home so the others wouldn’t kill me. She always told me stories about life outside and about humans and other creatures.”

Mako goes quiet suddenly. He shared enough for that night by both his and Jamison’s standards but something was pulling him to open up more, to let Jamison in. “She got sick when I was fourteen,” he says, continuing after a long moment, “took care of her for a few months while I watched her die. Wasn’t long after that when the village elders showed up. Told me I could either leave or they were going to kill me. Told me I didn’t belong there.” Mako’s voice was getting more hoarse as he spoke, not use to talking for such an extended period of time, especially about something so difficult for him. 

He coughs quietly before opening up his canteen and taking a slow drink from it to soothe his throat. He refuses to look at Jamison, not wanting to know how his friend would look at him if he knew something so personal. He is caught off guard after a moment though by Jamison’s slender hand reaching up to hold his own. 

“You belong with me,” his voice rings out, “Who cares if you didn’t belong with those giants, they were a bunch of cunts anyway.” The comment earns him a half-hearted snort from Mako. “And humans are boring too. I don’t know why you’d ever want to hang out with them. You’ve got me now, big guy.” 

He waits for the older man to nod before speaking up again. “Don’t you ever get tired of eating rabbits?” He asks suddenly, slowly letting go of his friend’s hand. “You said there’s a town nearby. Why don’t we go get you some real food, maybe spend the night indoors for once.”

“No,” Mako says, both surprised and thankful for the sudden change of topic. “Villagers will-”

“Will what?” Jamie interrupts, “We’ll only be there a night. I use to spend the night in towns all the time. Most people can mistake me for an elf or something and you’ll just pass for a big ole human.”

He shakes his head, not believing that this plan will work at all. 

“What’s the worst that could happen? Someone gets a little mad then you and me get out of there and they never see us again. Easy plan. No one’s gonna start anything with you unless you start it first. You can trust me on that, right?”

The half-giant thinks it over for a second. On his own, he would have never put himself in danger like this. But if this is what Jamison wanted, Mako did not know if he could deny the young blonde. “Fine,” he says finally, hesitating before grabbing onto Jamison’s hand again, engulfing it in his much larger one. “I’m tired of eating rabbits anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those two are getting pretty chummy. What could possibly go wrong?


	10. Amari's Tavern

From the minute that the two entered the village, Mako could feel eyes on him. He convinced Jamison to wait until nightfall to go into town, not wanting to draw more attention than necessary. But even with the streets nearly empty, the few passerbys seemed to shy away from the couple making their way through town.

Jamison constantly looked up at his friend with fiery eyes, glowing and flickering orange in the night. “So far so good, mate,” he would say quietly, though the curtains in windows being pulled shut as they passed told a different story. 

Despite the slightly uneasy atmosphere coming from the streets of the town, Mako was surprised that they were not bothered by the villagers as they searched for an inn and tavern. He was even more surprised when Jamison marched right up to a stranger to ask for directions. 

Mako stayed back from the interaction, watching as Jamison leaned down to talk to the old man. The stranger had a long grey beard down to his stomach and was dressed in a raggedy cloak, holding a walking stick tight in both of his frail hands. Mako could not make out what the old man was saying but saw him point down the street to a well-lit building with a sign hanging from the door that read “Amari’s.”

“You alright, Roadie?” The elemental asks as he approaches his friend again, staring up at the half-giant. “Mako?”

With the mention of his name, he tears his eyes away from the building to look down at Jamison. “Shouldn’t have talked to him,” he rumbles out, only earning him a sharp-toothed grin from his companion. 

“You worried about me, mate?” Jamie teases before trying to reassure his friend. “He’s an old cunt, he’s not going to do anything. Come on, Amari’s kitchen closes in an hour.” With that, the elemental nudges his friend with the stump of his right arm before hobbling toward the building.

Though Jamison’s bravery calms his nerves for a moment, he immediately tenses again as they entered the tavern. All conversation and talking stops within a few seconds of Jamie opening the door, dying away as one by one, guests get a glimpse of the two monsters in the doorway. Almost fifty people are frozen and at any moment, Mako expects them to panic or to attack. He grips the meat hook on his hip, ready to defend Jamie and himself when a voice gets their attention. 

“Come in and close the door. You are letting the cold in.” The voice comes from an old woman behind the bar. She has grey hair with a blue wrap covering most of her head, a tattoo under her left eye, and an eyepatch over her right. 

With her acceptance of the travelers, the men and women in the tavern seem to go back to what they were doing before. Several eyes remain on them, cautious of the two strangers as they make their way toward the bar. “What can I do for you?” the woman asks calmly, eye moving between the two men. 

“My friend wants food,” Jamie speaks up with a grin, leaning on the bar as soon as he is close enough, “Lots of food, whatever you’ve got. And we want to sleep here.” 

The woman just raises an eyebrow at the two, waiting for a moment. Mako catches on quickly, digging through the satchel across his shoulder and pulling out a single, deep red ruby, no bigger than the tip of his thumb. He sets it on the bar, not saying a word as the woman, Amari, inspects it. 

“That’ll get you two more food than even you can eat,” she says simply before straightening up a bit, surprising Mako by not bothering to ask where he got the jewel. “We only have one room left with only one bed,” she says, reaching below the counter for a moment and setting a brass key with the number two carved onto it in front of her guests. “When you’re ready to turn in, your room will be upstairs. It’s the first one on the right,” he explains, “Go have a seat, I’ll have someone bring you dinner.” With that, the old woman takes the ruby and turns to shout something into the kitchen. 

Mako was hesitant to let his guard down, even as fewer and fewer people stare at them while they wait for their food. “Mate?” Jamie’s voice rings out, not quite getting his attention until he feels a pegleg kick against his shin from under the table where they sat. “You aren’t listening to me,” the elemental narrows his eyes and frowns at his friend before speaking again, “I said, look behind you! Wait, no! Don’t look. He’s coming over!”

“Good evening my friends!” a booming voice rings out in a thick accent as a large platter of food is placed in front of the two guests. Mako frowns at the loud voice, turning his head to look up at the man who had served them but is surprised at just how far up he has to look. He cranes his neck back, staring up at the man. He has a beard and a thick mustache, both completely white with old age and a scar running vertically over his left eye. What stands out the most though is his impressive height. He is clearly over seven feet tall and Mako imagines that if he stood up, they would be very similar in height. 

The old man just grins down at the two, looking between Mako and Jamison as he sets two large glasses of beer on the table as well. “Drinks are on me tonight,” he says kindly, “It’s not often that I see many of our kind passing through here.” 

The half-giant just stares up at the stranger with wide eyes. While usually, Mako was silent by choice, for once he is shocked speechless with millions of questions running through his mind. 

“You are at a loss for words. It is understandable,” The man observes with a nod. “I am Reinhardt. If you need anything while you are here feel free to ask me or Miss Ana, the woman you spoke to earlier.” 

Reinhardt looks as if he is about to say more when Ana calls to him from the bar. “Let them eat,” she calls out, “You can socialize when there is no work to be done.” Though her tone is serious, there is a hint of fondness within in, which has the old man smiling over at her.

“I am coming,  liebling,” he calls out with a soft smile before patting a hand on Mako’s shoulder in a brief goodbye, leaving the two travelers to eat their meal in peace. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sliding in an old married couple.


	11. Why Can't We?

Jamison does not bring up the encounter with Mako until the two were outside of room two, ready to turn in for the night almost two hours later. “He was like you!” Jamie blurts out before his friend can even get the door open. “There’s another half-giant here! You need to go talk to him!”

“Not going to,” Mako says stubbornly. He opens the door and rests a hand on Jamison’s back to guide him inside before stepping in himself to lock it behind them. 

“Fine,” Jamie says without a fight. He hobbles over to the only bed in the room and plops down on it, facing Mako, “but you said that you’ve never seen another person like you and there was one right here in this building. Don’t you want to know where he’s from or why he’s here?” 

“No,” Mako insists again, making his way over to his friend. As incredible as it was to have met Reinhardt the half-giant, Mako did not want to get his hopes up in interacting with the old man further. The two needed to keep moving.

He shakes his head a bit before kneeling in front of the elemental. He looks for a nod of permission before reaching down and grabbing onto the metal of the prosthetic pegleg. He guides it to rest on his thigh before reaching up to unlatch the contraption just as he had watched Jamie do for what felt like hundreds of times. “One thing,” Mako encourages him, wanting to get their nightly sharing session out of the way so that he can rest for the evening. 

He sets the pegleg to the side, scooting it underneath the bed so that he would not trip on it in the morning before his eyes are drawn back to the scar on Jamison’s half-formed thigh. He frowns a bit at the wound, reaching up and grazing his fingers over the incredibly warm, scarred flesh before looking up at his friend who met him with strangely soft eyes.

“Fine,” Jamison says quietly, only thinking for a moment before starting, “We’ve both been through a lot, you probably a little more than me. But you said you’ve never gone into town like this before and you’ve never seen another half-giant before. Call me crazy if you want, mate, but I think it means something.” The elemental is quiet for a moment before continuing, eyes locked onto Mako’s darker ones. “Anyway, I guess what I wanted to let you know is that I think we should stay here. I think we both deserve a break and if that big guy downstairs can live a normal life here then that means this town has got to be accepting, right? I mean we don’t have to do anything you don’t want. If you want to keep moving after tonight then that’s fine. I’ll follow you anywhere, mate. I just think it’s an option and plenty of misfits like us settle down with someone they love why can’t-”

Mako tenses up, realizing what Jamison had been about to say before he stopped himself. He stares at Jamison, who was clearly becoming a bit flustered, looking away from his friend and shifting uncomfortably. His skin heats up to the point where it burns, making the half-giant pull his hand from the younger man’s thigh quickly. 

“Sorry I was just-” Jamison tries to recover before giving up. “It’s your turn,” he insists, staring down at his hand instead of at his friend. 

Mako frowns up at Jamison, unsure of how he felt about the other’s admission. He knew that it would be a lie to insist that he just thought of Jamison as a friend. The two were so much more than that now. Mako has never trusted anyone like he has Jamie. Over the months together, he has opened himself up to another person for the first time in his life. But to put a name to what he felt toward Jamison did not feel right to him. It felt risky as if things could completely fall apart with one wrong move and so he could not tell Jamison that he loved him too.

“Mate? Hey, Mako, just forget what I said, okay? It’s your turn to share something, right?”

Mako stares up at Jamie for a moment. The elemental seemed defeated with himself, staring downward and avoiding eye contact with his friend. It almost makes the half-giant reconsider what he was about to say. 

“I haven’t slept in a bed since before Junkertown,” he shares easily, avoiding the obvious elephant in the room. “Scoot over.”

The fire elemental seems to become even more upset at that, likely having expected some sort of acknowledgment of his feelings from his friend. At having not received one, he moves over to one side of the bed and lays on his side, facing the wall. 

Mako feels a bit of guilt at not expressing his feelings to Jamie. He sets his bag and hook beneath the bed next to Jamie’s prosthetic and lays down in bed beside his friend. He hesitates before resting a hand on the blonde’s side, feeling the unnatural warmth there. “Settling down would be nice,” he says quietly after a few minutes of silence, immediately getting Jamison’s attention again.

“Yeah?” the younger man asks, turning on the mattress to face his friend. “You think we can stay here?” 

Mako stares down at the light flickering in Jamie’s eyes as he nods slowly. It was not the admission of love that Jamison deserves but it was one thing that Mako could allow himself to agree to for now. The rest could wait until later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter is a little short. I promise the next one will make up for it! Just one more left and then an epilogue! Chapter twelve will be up on February 26th, and the epilogue will be up a day or two after that (depending on reviews honestly) so we will be finishing up Tell Me One Thing next week!


	12. Ash and Blood

“Mako,” the harsh hiss from Jamison wakes him up almost immediately, “Mako, we got to go.” The half-giant shifts in the bed, sitting up groggily as he blinks his eyes into focus. Jamie is sitting in his lap and clamping a hand over the larger man’s mouth to stop him from asking questions. He hushes the older man quietly before sliding out of his lap to reach under the bed for his prosthetic leg. 

As Mako slowly wakes up more, he can hear what had alarmed Jamie. He hears talking downstairs and quietly gets up from bed, grabs his hook, and makes his way to the door so that he can hear them better. 

“Ma’am if you’re housing criminals, you need to tell us where right now,” a muffled voice commands from somewhere downstairs.

“You men have no right to barge in on us like this,” Ana Amari’s voice is clearer and sounds as if it is coming from the base of the stairs. She is blocking the soldier’s route to them. “We do not open for those who are not overnight guests until this afternoon. You are free to come back then for dinner if you would like.”

“Miss Amari,” the man begins again, “I don’t think you understand. These men are thieves and murderers. They killed the Queen of Junkertown and burned the city down to almost nothing.”

The only exit to the inn was out the front door, blocked by the men downstairs. He hesitates for a moment before pushing open the door to their room, glancing out of the crack in the door. He was able to see Ana at the bottom of the stairs, but could not tell how many soldiers were downstairs with her.

“As if Junkertown is so innocent,” the innkeeper shoots back, still standing her ground, “The Queen was a monster. She was guilty of participating in the slave trade and torture. She was cruel to her people.”

“You don’t understand the situation,” another man’s voice cuts in, “Almost a hundred civilians were killed in the fire. These two need to pay for the lives that they have taken.”

Mako cannot see the old woman’s face, but at the sudden silence, he knows that they will not have much time. 

“Ana,” a familiar accented voice speaks up as the half-giant from last night steps toward her, resting an abnormally large hand on her shoulder. He leans down to her, talking to her quietly before looking back to the men. “We will give you time to do your jobs,” he tells them before guiding Ana out of sight, stepping aside and clearing a path.

Mako closes the door quickly just as several sets of footsteps begin to thump on the staircase. He thought that he would be able to tell how many men there were, but it’s clear now that there are too many to count by their footsteps alone. He looks over to his friend on the bed before glancing at the window. “Jamie,” he growls out, nodding toward the window. It was the only exit besides the one downstairs, and the way to that one was blocked. 

“Yeah, yeah okay mate, okay,” the elemental chatters out as he nods frantically. He hobbles over to the window, resting his hand on it before freezing, noticing what the half-giant already had. The window was only so big. There was no way that Mako could fit his large frame through. “Are you kidding?I’m not leaving without you.”

At a thud against the door, Mako leans his weight on it to keep out the men. “Go,” he insists again. He feels a thud against his back and men yelling behind the door. 

“Roadhog and Jamison Fawkes! You are both wanted men! Don’t make this harder than it needs to be!” After a moment, he adds on, “We have thirty men and plenty of water! If you turn yourselves over now, we will make this as painless as possible!”

“Don’t be a stupid cunt,” Jamie hisses angrily, marching toward his friend with narrowed eyes. “We’re going to do this together this time.”

Mako frowns hard, keeping his weight on the door. He was unsure if the man was bluffing or not but if these people had seen what the two runaways were capable of in Junkertown, there is no way that they would come unprepared.

He did not know when protecting Jamison became his top priority. Since the two met, he went from wanting the elemental dead to not caring what happened to him. But now, nothing scared Mako more than losing the man in front of him. He could not explain to Jamie what he meant to him, but he needed him to know him getting hurt was not an option. 

“Jamie,” he says quietly, frowning hard before reaching forward with one hand. He cups the side of Jamison’s face gently and pulls him forward. 

In forty-eight years, Mako has never kissed anyone and with Jamison having been just as alone as he was, neither has the elemental. He closes his eyes and lets himself enjoy Jamison’s chapped lips against his own for only a moment before pulling away. His hand stays on the heated skin of Jamie’s cheek as he stares down at him for a moment. “Go,” he urges, voice quieter and more broken than he intended, “Please, Jamie.” 

The blonde stares up at him, in a daze for just a moment before he nods slightly. “Okay,” he says quietly, stepping back toward the window. “Okay. You be careful. I’ll see you real soon, right?” Jamie waits for his friend to nod before heading back to the window. He looks back for just a second before struggling to get his prosthetic over the window sill. Within a minute, he is gone from Mako’s sight. 

The half-giant takes a deep breath, holding the metal hook tight in his hand before running away from the door and turning to face his opponents. The door swings open and Mako is met face to face with only a few soldiers. Six of them, dressed from head to toe in armor, hurry into the room and Mako can hear others running back down the stairs as shouting comes from below them. “The elemental is outside!”

Panic runs through Mako at the shout. He steps forward quickly, wrapping a chain around a man’s neck and pulling him to the ground. He steps forward, catching another man’s knee with his boot and breaking his leg immediately. He swings his hook out, cutting the crippled man across the neck and watching him fall to the floor. He is able to make quick work of the other four men. For once, he did not care to kill them. He just needed them out of the way so he could help Jamison. 

The blonde did not want to split up and now he was paying for Mako’s decision. The half-giant bolts down the stairs, his footsteps thudding along. When he reaches the bottom he glances around the tavern, eyes catching on Ana and Reinhardt behind the bar. The large white-haired man steps in front of the old woman, though Mako had no time to start a fight with them. He hurries out the front door, eyes wide at the sight that greets him.

Jamison is on his hands and knees, dripping wet and coughing violently as blood pools beneath him. He is impaled on a metal spear that pierces through his stomach and is embedded in the ground below. “Mako-” the injured man chokes out, trying to move but held in place by the iron running through him.

“Don’t move, Roadhog,” one of the men standing over Jamie warns, lowering his sword to the back of Jamison’s neck. 

Mako looks over the crowd for a moment. There are only ten people surrounding him. The first man had clearly lied about their numbers. He glances to his right, seeing a large, metal cage atop a wagon, clearly meant for the monsters.

Mako recognizes a man in the crowd immediately. He is old with a long beard, dressed in rags and holding a walking stick. Jamie talked to this man last night. He asked him for directions and in turn, the old man had sold them out. He offers Mako a crooked grin.

_ He’s an old cunt, he’s not going to do anything. _

“Thank you for your help,” a soldier tells the old man, handing him a small purple bag, filled with coins if the jingling sound it makes is any indication of it. “We can take this from here.”

Mako stares at the old man in disbelief as he leaves before turning his attention to the remaining soldiers, then back to Jamie. He knew the elemental was capable of bleeding, of being bruised, and of feeling pain. The half-giant experienced this first hand when he fought the blonde in the arena, but now it seemed as though Jamison was weaker than ever. His arm shakes as he tries to keep himself up on his knees, spitting out blood onto the ground.

“Let him go,” Mako says, voice raspy as he speaks. His eyes are trained on Jamie, not bothering to look at the soldiers.

“Yeah, okay,” the man with the spear says after a moment, a cruel smirk on his face. “You hear the freak? He wants us to let his boyfriend go.” The man laughs for only a moment before removing the spear from the elemental’s body, only to stab it back in a moment after, piercing him through the shoulder this time. The force pushes Jamison to the ground as he screams out in pain.

Mako had taken a step forward but at seeing Jamie in pain, he froze, not wanting for the other man to be hurt anymore. 

“You two have been running for too long. You’re going back to Junkertown now, Hog,” the soldier with the spear says with a cruel grin as he nods his head toward the cage beside Mako, “Get in the cage and close the door, nice and slow.”

The half-giant does not move, eyes flitting between the soldiers and his friend on the ground. The men surrounding him are all gripping their weapons with white knuckles, clearly scared of the two monsters that they have confronted. “Jamie-”

“Your friend is too dangerous to bring back,” the man says with narrowed eyes locked onto Mako, “Get in the cage and we’ll let him go.”

“You’re killing him,” Mako growls out, not buying the lie for a second. 

“Get in the cage,” the man repeats again firmly, slowly twisting his spear in his hand and drawing out a scream and a sob from the elemental.

“Don’t you dare,” Jamie chokes out through his sobs of pain, eyes catching Mako’s suddenly. 

The half-giant had taken a step toward the open cage until he is stopped by Jamie’s stare. The blonde’s orange eyes are flickering violently as the fire suddenly reignites and grows, spurting from his eye sockets. 

One of the other soldiers, a much younger man with red hair, steps toward the elemental, raising a bucket of water from the ground. Mako knows this is his only chance and he steps forward, throwing his hook outward and catching the young man in the throat, slicing it open. 

The soldier with his sword at Jamison’s neck raises it up high, ready to bring it down when Jamie completely ignites with fire, consuming the men closest to him. It was unlike anything Mako had seen before. The fire did not stop at the size and shape of Jamie’s body as it has before. It instead explodes outward, taking almost all of the soldiers with it.

The remaining few are picked off easily by Mako, who moves forward immediately to join the fight. He grabs onto two soldiers, one by his neck and the other by her shoulder and wastes no time in pushing them to the ground and crushing both of their skulls with the back of his hook. Another soldier runs past him, trying to get away. There is fire on his clothes as he runs, but Mako is not satisfied with the man burning. He throws his hook out and catches the man around the waist before yanking it back in and pulling the man to him. He twists his hook, pushing it through the man’s stomach and watching as he spits up blood and the life leaves from his eyes. 

“Ma-Mako.”

Jamie’s broken voice snaps him out of his daze, making him turn around to look at his fallen friend. The sight before him makes him sick. Jamie is up on his knees, pulling frantically at the bladed end of the spear. His hand is slipping in his own blood, not letting him get a proper grip on the metal. “I can’t- I can’t melt it! I need it out!” His fiery form has disappeared completely, only leaving the slightest flicker in his eyes. His body is black with ash and red from the blood pooling from his two wounds and his mouth. “Mako!” he yells out again, panicked and in pain.

The larger man hurries over to his friend, kneeling down in the ashes left behind by the explosion of fire. He reaches out, grabbing Jamie by his shoulder and trying to steady him before grabbing Jamie’s hand. “Stop,” he says, not wanting the younger man to cut himself in his struggling. “Jamie-” Mako is at a loss for words, unsure if there was anything he could do to help his friend. 

“Get it out!” the blonde screams through a sob, squeezing onto Mako’s much larger hand with enough force to bruise.

The half-giant wastes no time in grabbing the spear and snapping it in half behind Jamie’s back, then grabbing it right below the blade at Jamie’s shoulder and pulling it out quickly. 

The elemental lets out a broken scream which falls into a whimper of pain as his weight settles against Mako’s chest. “Mate-” he starts, shaking his head tiredly, “Mako. You got to go, mate. There could be more- You need to-”

“Hush,” Mako says quietly, repositioning Jamie in his arms to that he can see the elemental’s face. He cups the side of the blonde’s face, staring down at him in shock, unsure of what to do. “You’re going to be okay.” He was not sure if he was trying to convince his friend or himself, but at a small shake of Jamie’s head, he goes silent. 

Jamison was losing blood fast. It was pooling at his stomach and shoulder. Mako covers the young elemental’s stomach with a hand in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but it was clear that there was nothing that could be done for him. He wipes some blood and soot from his friend’s lips, staring down at him as his vision gets blurry. 

“Don’t cry mate,” Jamie was choking on his own words, struggling to get each one out as clearly as he can. He reached up, resting his hand on the back of Mako’s neck before trying to wipe the older man’s tears away, only succeeding in smearing ashes across his face. “We had a good run, yeah?”

Mako finds himself nodding quickly, unable to do anything but agree with his friend for once. “I’m sorry,” he rasps out, staring down at the blonde. He made Jamie leave through the window. If they had stayed together things might have been different. Jamison is hurt and he is to blame. It is Mako’s fault that Jamie is dying.

“Don’t,” Jamie warns, “Don’t say that. This isn’t on you, mate.” The elemental is losing strength quickly, but even now he is still able to read the half-giant as easily as ever. The hand on Mako is slowly losing its grip and he is having a hard time even keeping his eyes open. “Hey, Mako?” he asks quietly, “Tell me one thing that I don’t know about you.” His voice is barely a whisper now.

Mako has always had trouble with their game. Usually, when he had to share something with Jamison, it was hard for him to think of something to say, not wanting the other man to know much about him. This time, he could not narrow it down to just one thing. There was so much that he wanted Jamison to know. He wanted to tell the elemental all about growing up in The Valley of The Giants, about how long he grieved after his mother’s death, how lonely he had been while traveling on his own, how angry he was when forced to fight in the pits, how annoyed he had been when Jamie would not leave him alone at first, and now, how terrified he was of losing someone he loved. 

It takes him a moment to collect himself enough to speak. He wipes his eyes on his sleeve before going back to holding his friend close. He opens his mouth almost four times before he finally gets a string of words out. “I don’t want to lose you,” he says quietly, leaning down to press his forehead against his friend’s, just holding him tight. 

“Me neither,” Jamie gets out weakly, eyes closed as he seems to be having a harder and harder time breathing. He leans up with the last of his strength, pressing his lips to Mako’s briefly. “I love you, Mako.”

The half-giant can do nothing but hold on tight as his friend’s body finally turns cold.

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed the story. If you did, consider leaving me a reviewing, donating to my ko-fi, or checking out some of my other works. I've recently started another fantasy au for Doomcio, and have a stripper Genyatta AU in the works now.   
> This story has meant so incredibly much to me while I was writing it. It was terribly fun and I'm sad to see it end. Thank you all for tagging along. I'll post the epilogue tomorrow so please check it out.


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tiniest little epilogue

Mako Rutledge’s eyes were stinging but whether it was from his tears or the smoke, he was not certain. Despite everything his friend said, the half-giant knew that Jamison Fawkes died because of him. Last night he went to bed with Jamie beside him, knowing that he was loved by someone for the first time in his life and promising to settle down together but within an hour of waking up, it was all taken away from him.

No one tried to stop him as he left town. The villagers either had pity on him or were too scared of him to act out. He held the blonde’s limp body in his arms, frail and bloody as he took him back into the forest. Mako did not have time to bury the body, but he was sure that Jamison would prefer this anyway.

He found a fallen tree and laid the crippled blond down upon it before surrounding it with sticks and dried branches, leaves, and bushes, anything that he could find to make a funeral pyre worthy of a fire elemental. It did not take long once he lit the fire for it to take over the entire tree. Smoke rises into the air and for once the half-giant does not care if the signal draws the attention of those who were looking for him.

He takes a step back from the fire, resting his back against a tree behind him as he watches it burn, hypnotized by the flames as they reach up into the sky, watching the shapes that form and vanish. 

He watches them for a long time before something stranger catches his attention. The flames closest to him stop flickering. They do not change shape but instead hold a constant form which slowly stands up on two fiery legs. Mako can do nothing but stare in awe as the fiery form of Jamison Fawkes walks toward him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! I didn't want to keep some of ya'll waiting too long.   
> I'm very proud of this story and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. Please consider leaving me a review of what you thought of the story and it's ending.   
> Thank you!


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